History of the Rhinoceros 147 



name for the rhinoceros is nu kio. There is also the chen ch'u, which is 

 presumably a rhinoceros. The rhinoceros has three hairs growing out of 

 each pore. 1 Liu Hiao-Piao asserts that the rhinoceros sheds its horn 

 and buries it, and that people exchange it for a counterfeit horn." 



The story alluded to in the latter clause is better worded in the 

 Pen ts'ao, which says, "It is told also that the rhinoceros sheds its horn 

 every year, and itself buries it in the mountains. The people near the 

 sea, with all secrecy, make wooden horns, and exchange these for the 

 real ones, and so they go ahead continually. If they would go to work 

 openly, the animal would conceal its horns in another place and defy 

 any search." 2 



Li Sim, who wrote an account of the drugs of southern countries 

 (Hai yao pen ts'ao) in the second half of the eighth century, expresses 

 himself in these words : "The rhinoceros ' communicating with the sky,' 

 during the time of pregnancy, beholds the forms of things 3 passing 

 across the sky, and these are reproduced in the horn of the embryo: 

 hence the designation ' communicating with the sky.' 4 When the horn, 

 placed in a water-basin during a moonlight night, reflects the brilliancy 

 of the moon, it is manifest that it is a genuine horn 'communicating 

 with the sky.' The Wu k'i ki 5 says, 'The mountain-rhinoceros lives 

 on bamboo and trees. Its urinating is not completed in the course of a 

 day. The I Liao 6 get hold of it by means of bow and arrow. This is 



up with lowered head. When at rest they stand with their noses almost touching the 

 ground, their heads being elevated to a horizontal position only when alarmed." 



1 The same is said in the Pen ts'ao in regard to the seal (compare G. Schlegel, 

 T'oung Pao, Vol. Ill, 1892, p. 508). Compare p. 140. 



2 In the text of the Cheng lei pen ts'ao, Su Sung terminates, " I do not know wheth- 

 er at present they take horns in this manner or not." Compare the account of Ko 

 Hung, p. 139. 



3 The Cheng lei pen ts'ao reads "the destiny of things" (wu ming) instead of 

 "forms of things" (wu king). 



4 In the notes embodied in the Pin ts'ao regarding the elephant (Ch. 51 a, p. 4) 

 it is said that the patterns in the horn are formed while the rhinoceros gazes at the 

 moon, and that the designs spring forth in the tusks of the elephant while the animal 

 hears the thunder. A work Wu teng hui yuan, as quoted in P'ei wen yilnju (Ch. 21, 

 p. 113 b), similarly says that the rhinoceros, while enjoying the moonlight, produces 

 the designs in its horn, and that the floral decorations enter the tusks of the elephant 

 when it has been frightened by thunder. These passages prove that it is material 

 heaven to whose influence the formation of the natural veins in horn and tusk is 

 ascribed. The rhinoceros gazing at the moon is represented in T'u shu tsi ch'eng 

 (Fig. 10). 



6 A work listed in the T'ai p'ing yii Ian as being published in 983; but, as it is 

 quoted here by Li Sun, it must have existed in or before the eighth century. 



6 An aboriginal tribe belonging to the stock of the Man, according to T'ang shu 

 (Ch. 43 A, p. 6 b) settled in Ku chou (Playfair, No. 3256) in the province of Kuei- 

 chou. Compare p. 82 in regard to the possibility of killing a rhinoceros with arrows. 



